Appropriate initial antibiotics

Antibiotics are medicines that treat infection, and each antibiotic is different. A hospital should select the antibiotics that best treat the infection type for each pneumonia patient.

Why this is important:

Pneumonia is a lung infection that is usually caused by bacteria or a virus. If pneumonia is caused by bacteria, the hospital will treat the infection with antibiotics. Different bacteria are treated with different antibiotics.

The chart above indicates the percentage of patients who were given the most appropriate antibiotic(s) for the type of pneumonia they had.